Inside A.C.T.

By Simon Hodgson  When A.C.T. started planning its 50th-anniversary season, the company's management team tasked Resident Dramaturg Michael Paller with writing a book to celebrate this milestone. The result is A Five-Act Play: 50 Years of A.C.T. , which will be published by Chronicle Books on April 27. Artwork for A Five-Act Play: 50 Years of A.C.T. by Michael Paller. Organized approximately by decade, A Five-Act Play is a historical retrospective. "The first period, from 1967 to 1979, was an era of triumph, culminating in the Regional Theater Tony Award in 1979." By contrast, says Paller, "The '80s were largely a disaster, with financial troubles, William Ball leaving as artistic director, and ending in the Loma Prieta Earthquake in 1989." Since then, he says, there's been a sense of rebirth—with the renovation of The Geary Theater in the 1990s and the creation of the three-year Master of Fine Arts Program—and regeneration, most recently wit...

By Elspeth Sweatman As A.C.T. gears up to celebrate its 50th birthday, we are taking a trip down memory lane. For Subscription Manager Mark Peters, that’s 30 years of stories and subscription order forms, productions and puzzles. What was the first show you saw at A.C.T.? The first A.C.T. production I saw was actually while I was in college. In class, we watched tapes of Cyrano de Bergerac (1972). The first show I saw at The Geary was King Lear in 1987. It was the first season after Artistic Director Bill Ball had left. You’ve been here almost 30 years. What have been some of your favorite productions? I saw Angels in America (1994)—both parts—every time we changed a cast. I went to both parts six times. That’s a commitment; each part is four, four-and-a-half hours. But it was amazing. Our angel was wicked; she had these big metal wings that could open and close. The theater we performed in (the Marines’ Memorial Theatre) didn’t have any fly space, so we had to work ...

By Elspeth Sweatman Fifty years ago this Saturday, A.C.T.’s first production at The Geary Theater opened. And under those bright lights was actor Ken Ruta. Here are his memories of that magical evening, and the early years of A.C.T. Ken Ruta as The Player and Larry Carpenter as Guildenstern in A.C.T.'s 1972 production of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead .  Photographer unknown. When did you start at A.C.T.? I was in the first play of the first season. Molière’s Tartuffe . I still remember opening night. Most of us were offstage at the beginning, and one of the actors was very nervous. He couldn’t stop stuttering. One of the great ladies in the company slugged him in the back. That cured him. Since it was Molière, it was written in Alexandrines, 12 beats to a line. Not iambs, which are ten [ He demonstrates by tapping on the table. ] Well I was the first person opening night to forget his lines. I had to ad lib in Alexandrines! I remember the door opening and the w...